CalOHA Documents Its History In Celebration of Its 50th Anniversary

The California Outdoor Hospitality Association (CalOHA) celebrates its 50th anniversary in this year.

But even though the association has provided private park operators with a half century’s worth of critical legislative victories, education in best practices as well as important marketing and media outreach services, many park operators have no idea what the association does, what it has achieved or why it’s important to be a member.

CalOHA aims to answer these questions in a forthcoming book,  which document’s the association’s 50-year history, its successes and the challenges that private park operators face in California today.

CalOHA President and CEO Dyana Kelley said it’s important to share the association’s history right now because many longtime park operators are selling their businesses to new owners, many of whom have no knowledge of CalOHA history or of what the association does on park operators’ behalf.

Charles Amian, who serves on the boards of directors of both CalOHA and Outdoor Hospitality Industry (OHI), said that if more new and existing park operators had a better understanding of the work CalOHA performs on their behalf, they’d likely see association membership as being critical not only to their individual business interests, but essential to strengthen the private park industry itself.
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With these thoughts in mind, CalOHA in the coming months will produce a history book that documents the association’s 50-year history and its key legislative, education and marketing initiatives to support private park operators in California.

Jeff Crider, a longtime writer for RV Business and Woodall’s Campground Magazine who has worked for CalOHA for many years, has already produced a preliminary draft of the book, which documents the evolution of the private campground industry and CalOHA’s key accomplishments dating back it its early days as the California Travel Parks Association (CTPA), when it began shaping the legal and regulatory foundation of the private park industry in California.

Crider, who has worked as CalOHA’s publicist since late 2008, said the project was eye-opening for him. “I’ve been working for the association for many years, but CTPA had already been around for more than 30 years before I started writing for the association, and much of their history I knew nothing about,” he said.

In addition to interviewing Kelley and her predecessor, Debbie Sipe, Crider explored the association’s archives in Auburn, where he found copies of old letters, hand-written and type-written notes and memos by CTPA’s founders, including Eldredge “El” Welton of Orangeland RV Park in Orange and CTPA Co-Executive Director Judy Miller, documenting how CTPA came into existence in the first place.

Crider also located and interviewed several CTPA old timers, including the late Virginia Welton, who passed away earlier this year at 103, and Dave Hodgin, CTPA’s first president, who created the Certified Park Operator (CPO) education program for OHI’s early predecessor, the National Campground Owners Association (NCOA), in 1979.

CalOHA’s history book not only documents the association’s extensive industry education efforts, but its many government affairs initiatives during the past half century.

“Through my research,” Crider said, “it’s become clear to me that without a state campground industry association there would be no separation in the regulations governing campgrounds, RV parks and mobilehome parks in California. Everyone would have to build their parks to comply with manufactured housing codes. Park operators would also have a much harder time removing guests that didn’t pay or failed to abide by other park rules because they’d be subject to California’s complex landlord-tenant laws.

“Without a state association lobbying on private park operators’ behalf,” Crider added, “it’s anyone’s guess when or if Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and the Public Utilities Commission would have authorized the submetering of electricity in RV parks or when or if California would have outlawed the use of chemical-based RV holding tank products that damage campground and RV park septic systems, resulting in costly repairs while threatening local groundwater supplies. These are the kinds of battles that individual campground, RV park and glamping resort owners cannot successfully fight on their own.”

Fact is, the private park industry needs an industry association working 24/7 on its behalf to kill harmful regulations and legislation before they become law, and to push for changes in existing regulations that benefit park operators across the state.

“Parks today may have varying marketing needs, but everybody has legislative needs, and nobody has a legislative department capable of taking on the whole state of California,” said Mike Bell, a second-generation co-owner and operator of the San Diego Metro KOA in Chula Vista, which his father, Ted Bell, co-founded in 1968.

CalOHA hopes to release its history book before the end of the year.